As soon as Bill de Blasio was elected mayor, Wallace Cheatham figured that a cause he had long championed — the creation of a permanent, prominent honor for the city’s first black police commissioner — would be quickly approved.

After all, Mr. de Blasio, in his previous job as the city’s public advocate, had told Mr. Cheatham that he favored the idea of naming a public building for the commissioner, Benjamin Ward, who also ran the city jails and state prisons.

“When he was elected mayor, I thought, ‘This is a slam dunk,’” Mr. Cheatham said. “I gave him six months and I wrote a letter. No response. Wrote another letter, no response.”

Three years have passed, with two dozen letters, and Mr. Cheatham says he has not heard yes, no, or we’re thinking about it. “It’s at the point where the failure to respond is the issue,” Mr. Cheatham said.

This is the story of a citizen who says he can’t get City Hall to pay attention, or even pretend to. “‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you’ — I never even got that,” Mr. Cheatham said.

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Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1983, announcing the appointment of Mr. Ward as the city’s police commissioner.CreditDon Hogan Charles/The New York Times

It is a peculiar breach of history. Many New York mayors have been devoted correspondents. “You are evidently a dishonest scamp, but I acknowledge the receipt of all letters,” wrote Mayor William J. Gaynor, who served from January 1910 until his death in September 1913. He wrote thousands of letters and was criticized for “government by epistle.”

Edward I. Koch, mayor from 1978 through 1989, once said: “I have a rule, and I’ve had it ever since I’ve been in public office. Every letter that you get, no matter how wacky, no matter how insulting, must be responded to.”

If proof were needed, he published a collection of his letters. When the book was announced, the Newsday columnist Dennis Duggan wrote, “Judging by just the letters Hizzoner has sent me, he will have no problem filling a volume the size of the Book of Kells.”

Staff members presented Rudolph W. Giuliani with a selection of the 300 to 400 letters that arrived every day. A boy in Queens suggested that the city could stop the spread of mosquitoes that carry encephalitis by releasing thousands of spiders around the city. The correspondence office had some form response letters on file, the mayor’s name signed by a felt-tipped pen in a signature machine.

Michael R. Bloomberg used to hand out business cards with his phone number and private email, and was known occasionally to take calls from the public at City Hall when others were not around.

During President Barack Obama’s time in the White House, when about 10,000 letters and emails arrived daily, the president was given 10 letters a day to take to the family residence and read in the evening.

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Mr. Cheatham with some of the letters and documents he has sent to Mayor Bill de Blasio and other officials, proposing that Mr. Ward be honored.CreditDanny Ghitis for The New York Times

Mr. Cheatham, who was president of the city probation officers union for eight years, said that he was prompted to propose an honor for Mr. Ward when the name of one of his successors, Bernard B. Kerik, was removed from two jail buildings. Mayor Giuliani named them for Mr. Kerik in 2001. Mayor Bloomberg unnamed them one night in 2006 after Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty to misdemeanors for accepting home renovations from a contractor.

“It just hit me: Benjamin Ward had a résumé 40 times better than Bernard Kerik,” Mr. Cheatham said. He proposed that either the former Kerik jail or Police Headquarters be named for Mr. Ward.

Mr. Cheatham rounded up support from prominent officials and former officials, including Mr. de Blasio when he was the public advocate, and wrote to the mayor.

He has become incensed by the lack of an answer from the de Blasio administration. “To me, it’s fundamental. It goes to the essence of a so-called democracy.”

Raul A. Contreras, a spokesman for the mayor, said a reception area on Rikers Island had been named for Mr. Ward. He also said that he believed some officials had spoken directly with Mr. Cheatham. (“Baloney,” Mr. Cheatham said.)

The mayor’s office gets about 1,200 letters and emails a week, Mr. Contreras said, and they are sent to agencies that can answer them. A few reach the mayor. Mr. Contreras said the city was trying to figure out what had become of the Cheatham correspondence.

“I am respectful of the job — he is covering a lot of bases,” Mr. Cheatham said. “I think after three years someone in his administration could write a response. Even if it’s not a response you want.”

Email: dwyer@nytimes.comTwitter: @jimdwyernyt

Alain Delaquérière contributed research.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Two Dozen Letters, No Response: Silence Greets Requests to Honor Police Official. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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